Percentage of Americans who if given $10,000 to spend in an automotive capacity said that they would buy a used car for straight cash, according to a Kelley Blue Book survey: 48.05

Percentage who said they would use it for a down payment on a new car: 33.63

Percentage who said they would use the money to fix their current car: 5.42

Percentage who said they would pay off parking and speeding tickets: 0.65

Source: Kelley Blue Book.

Percentage of Americans who say BP should pay for all financial losses resulting from the Gulf Coast oil spill, including wages of workers put out of work, even if those payments ultimately drive the company out of business, according to USA Today/Gallup Poll: 59

Percentage of Americans who say President Obama has not been tough enough in his dealings with BP: 71

Source: Gallup.

Percentage of people who say they find happiness and fulfillment in their job, according to a nationwide survey of employed Americans by Healthy Companies International: 26

Percentage of Americans who feel their job primarily serves to provide income so that they may enjoy other aspects of their lives: 60

Percentage who feel the job is mostly a drain on their energy and happiness: 11

Source: Healthy Companies International.

Percentage of CFOs who said they typically check in with the office several times daily while on vacation, according to a Robert Half Management Resources survey: 18

Percentage who said once or twice daily: 15

Percentage who don't check in at all: 26

Source: Robert Half Management Resources.

Percentage of dads who feel they partake in parenting responsibilities -- including diaper care -- more than their own fathers, according to a survey by Ipsos Public Affairs: 76

Percentage of fathers who say they either do most of the diaper changing in the house or an equal share: 80

Percentage of moms who say that dads in their household change as many diapers as they do: 33

Source: Ipsos Public Affairs.

Year that the first organized baseball game with recognizably modern rules was played -- between the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York and an informal team called the New York Nine -- according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1846

Number of innings played: 4

Number of spectators who are attracted to professional baseball games across the country annually: 80 million

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Percentage of females who said they want to date someone who is like their father, according to an AreYouInterested.com survey: 46

Percentage of responders who said if they were married, their husband/wife would immediately become more important to them than their father: 65

Source: Snap-interactive.com.

Percentage of American adults who will watch World Cup matches, according to a Zogby poll: 24

Percentage of "first globals" (the under-30 crowd) who will watch the matches: 42

Source: Zogby International.

Percentage of consumers who donate to support causes they believe in, according to a survey from Goodwill: 62

Despite their generosity, percentage of consumers who admit there have been times they've chosen not to donate their unused clothing: 71

For every one article of clothing donated, number of articles of clothing consumers have that are waiting to be donated: 30

Source: Goodwill.

Percentage of state energy regulators who expect the cost of residential electricity to increase next year, according to the Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions: 85

Percentage who felt that consumers would not accept any rate increase at all -- up from 23.3 percent one year ago: 34.3

Source: Deloitte.

Idle Thought

"A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule." -- Michael Pollan, author

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

When families were asked what they could not live without on family car trips, percentage who said music, according to a survey conducted on behalf of CarMax: 46

Percentage who said movies: 17

Percentage who said books: 16

Percentage who said gaming devices: 11

Source: CarMax.

Though Nike is not an official World Cup sponsor, thanks to some creative marketing, their percentage of the "World Cup buzz," according to The Nielsen Company: 30.2

Percentage of "the buzz" attributed to Adidas, a FIFA partner: 14.4

Of the 32 teams participating in the World Cup finals, number that will be wearing Nike uniforms, including the U.S. and Australia, compared to 12 for Adidas: 9

Source: Nielsen Media Research.

Perhaps due to frugality fatigue, percentage surge in upper-income Americans' self-reported spending, rising to an average of $145 per day in May, up from $109 per day in May 2009, and the highest monthly average since November 2008, according to a Gallup Poll: 33

Source: Gallup.

Percentage of the public who say it is more difficult to be a mother today than it was 20 or 30 years ago, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center: 70

Percentage who say the same about being a father: 60

Percentage of Americans who say that mothers are doing a worse job today than mothers did 20 or 30 years ago: 56

Source: Pewsocialtrends.org.

Percentage of Asians in the U.S. who have a bachelor's degree or higher education, according to figures announced by the the U.S. Census Bureau: 53

Percentage of non-Hispanic whites: 33

Percentage of African-Americans: 20

Percentage of Hispanics: 13

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

According to economists' estimates, percentage of consumers who are supporting relatives due to the market downturn, according to the results from a survey by AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co.: 25

Percentage of consumers who have say they have begun to do so: 16

Source: AXA Equitable Life Insurance Co.

Percentage of men who shave at least five times per week who report that they are living their dreams, according to the Schick Skin-dex survey: 76

Percentage of men who shave fewer than five times who say the same: 64

Source: Schick.

Ranks of health care, clean/green technology, and energy/utilities and manufacturing (tie) on the list of industries expected to generate the greatest growth in six-figure jobs, according to a survey by ExecuNet: 1, 2, 3 (tie)

Ranks of business development, sales and engineering on the list of management functions expected to be in the greatest demand during the next 12 months: 1, 2, 3

Source: ExecuNet.

Percentage of leaders from North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific who consider high-potential talent management programming (designed for employees who have the capability to take on significantly more responsibility and challenges to climb several levels beyond a current role) as a critical business investment during the upswing of 2010, according to a PDI Ninth House conducted study by Weber Shandwick: 66

Percentage of leaders who said they kept their high-potential program going through the downturn and will continue to do so: 38

Source: Dice Report.

Idle Thought

"Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep." -- Fran Leibowitz, author

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)

Dear old dad, it seems, is a little starved for attention, even on his big day -- projected amount consumers will spend on Father's Day, according to BIGresearch: $8.23 billion

Estimated amount consumers spent for Mother's Day: $11.25 billion

Rank of Father's Day as the year's busiest collect-call day for AT&T: 1

Source: BIGresearch.

Percentage of all new marriages in the U.S. in 2008 that were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another, according to a report by the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project: 14.6

Percentage of respondents who say they have an immediate family member or close relative who is married to someone of a different race: 35

Source: Pewsocialtrends.org.

As of the first week of June, number of tweets that had been sent by Twitter's 105 million users, according to the findings of a Harris Poll: 15 billion

Estimated number of active users on Facebook -- more members than the populations of Japan, Mexico and Russia combined: 400 million

Percentage of online Americans who use social media: 64

Source: Harris Interactive.

Percentage of small-business owners who say they would give up 10 percent of their company in exchange for a guarantee that they'd be protected from negative economic effects in 2010, according to a survey released by Brother International Corp.: 15

Percentage of small-business owners who say that the economy has taken a toll on their well-being and who find that their stress level is at the highest it's ever been: 51

Source: Brother International Corp.

Percentage of consumers who said they would miss aspects of reading paper books if they switched to reading e-books: 41

Ranks of touch (36 percent), portability (13 percent) and making notes (13 percent) on the list of the top aspects consumers said they would miss most: 1, 2, 3

Source: PriceGrabber.com.

Percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings (excludes the value of primary homes and defined-benefit pension plans), up from 39 percent in 2009, according to the EBRI 2010 Retirement Confidence survey: 43

Percentage who said they had less than $1,000, up from 20 percent in 2009: 27

Percentage who say they have confidence in their ability to save enough for a comfortable retirement, the second lowest point in the 20-year history of the survey: 16

Source: EBRI.

Percentage of Americans with a positive opinion about the federal government's handling of a British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a Zogby Interactive survey: 16

Percentage of respondents who have a positive opinion of British Petroleum's handling of the spill: 14 (Down 11 percentage points since the previous poll in late May.)

Source: Zogby International.

Percentage of global consumers who say online content of any kind will have to be considerably better than what is currently free before they will pay for it, according to a Nielsen survey across 52 countries: 71

Percentage of people who would no longer use a website that charges them: 79

Percentage who believe that once they purchase content, it should be theirs to copy or share with whomever they want: 62

Source: Nielsen Analytics.

Percentage of Americans who deem terrorism and federal government debt as their most worrisome issues when they consider threats to the future well-being of the U.S., according to a Gallup Poll: 79

Percentage who call each an "extremely serious" threat: 40

Source: Gallup.

Percentage of companies that outsource their IT infrastructure today, according to a study commissioned by Savvis Inc.: 17

Predicted percentage that will outsource their IT infrastructure in 2020: 64

Source: Savvis.

Idle Thought

"It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards." -- Baltasar Gracian, philosopher and writer

(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)